I was thinking about my old beliefs about the soul, and decided that when I referred to the soul, it was actually a metaphor, or a handy descriptor for something else, and then I started trying to pin down that "something else." I think now, possibly, that what we call the soul is the unified thought, or feeling, or being, that arises from the whole self. Not a fragmented reasoned out thought, not an unthinking reaction of feeling, but a movement that arises from and is consistent with the entire being--body, mind, and emotions. I need to think about this some more and perhaps refine, or even change, my ideas, but I think I'm on the right track. There must be something there that causes people to identify a certain thing as a soul, and I want to try as best I can to define it.
People want to believe in the soul, because by most people's definition, it's the part of you that is not of the body, and if there's a part of you that's not of the body, then it can live on after death. People just have a hard time accepting that we're no different from a tree or a flower or a bird or a bear. We live, develop, grow, and die, and that's the end of us. The only way we can live on after death is either through our works, whatever they may be, or in the hearts and minds of those who knew us.
But the only place we can imagine as the soul that we can see evidence of, is the mind. We, to a certain extent, reside in our minds, and our minds are created by our brains and bodies. A complete and whole being involves all of these, and is indivisible. Your brain by itself is not “you.”
While in our minds it can seem as if we can inhabit different worlds and place ourselves in an almost infinite number of scenarios, it all originates from our physical being. That is truly magical, if you think about it--almost more magical than imagining an infinite incorporeal ghost inhabiting our bodies--that our earth-grown beings are capable of creating and building so much as we have.